"Why would they rig a Prometheus as a battle ship?" Irony most likely, Pathers hate space travel so rigging the thing that carries all that fuel that allows it is probably symbolic.
@@DCdabest it's in base lore. Pathers used Prometheus as IED at least few times. And it really comes to mind, considering how fuel could be used straight for orbital bombarment, then why you just won't turn Prometheus into station sized grenade? And, well, there are a thing behind it too. Prometheus has brought a fire to humans, a light in other words too. Now it's bringing a light of Ludd.
"The fanatical Pathers have discovered an ironic sense of justice in converting the tanker which carries what they call 'Infernium' - AM fuel - into a hulking implement of holy war. Holding tanks and loading ports have been chopped apart and converted into hangars or gun mounts while sections of pumping rig have been torn off to be replaced with huge armor plates. The curved bow of the primary fuel tank has been cored and refit to spew barrages of missiles at those who serve Moloch that they may perhaps find absolution in blessed oblivion."
Dont forget: the Shepherd is a drone Tender AND has salvaging stuff build in. So you get a similar Bonus in salvaging like with the salvage rig AND you can use the shepherd in combat. Even when the Mining drones doesnt do that much, they can annoy frigs. Generally i try to use Shepherd and Wayfarer as PD Support ships. Very very good in that Position.
I love the Shep because it's A) Cheap to buy and run. B) Carries a very reasonable amount of cargo/fuel. C) Can fight. D) Helps with surveying and salvaging. When I'm doing explorer start I'll use 3-4 of these with my Apogee and just have them all defensive, then give them militarized hulls and salamanders. The mining pods don't do a lot of damage but 3-4 swarms of them will make those garbage pirate ships back up or explode. I'll also put bulkheads on them because I don't care if they get a bunch of D mods from popping every second or third fight. Just have them protect another ship.
Didn't realize the shepherd had the salvage bonus. I can't really see deploying them in combat after the very early game, but if they're a cheap salvage vessel, then just keeping it in fleet is fine.
I was also an enforcer hater, until my gf, a _brand-new_ Starsector player, randomly slapped 4 assault chainguns and safety overrides on an enforcer that she picked up for cheap, without even reading what anything does. She did not even read the quest texts, she just went straight into bounty hunting. Mother of God... It really just works.
Prometheus got absolutely gipped being below the phaeton, its invaluable for mid/late game in terms of force projection. it carries 3.75x the fuel and only costs 2.5x the supplies and 3x the fuel/lightyear. a single prometheus can get a large fleet to the edge of the sector and back with time for detours and still have fuel to spare. logistically cheaper than fielding 4 phaetons and lets you have 3 more combat ships in a full fleet. admittedly the burn level of 6 is non ideal but with aug drive mod it brings it back up to 8 which is what most of your cruisers are anyway, plus the atlas is also 6. By the time you fleet is big enough that you need another phaeton you should just buy a prometheus instead.
@@IvanTre I think if you install military subsystems you lose the bonus for bulk transport but I've never tested that to make sure. If you can that's a burn of 11.
Disco Donut being S tier doesn't surprise me tbh, Doom should be at least A tier since it still is quite powerful in the right hands, could You make a part 2 to include things like the Domain era drone ships, [REDACTED] and the Eradicators?
Blanket tier list kind of doesn't mean much. If we're talking about peak performance under player control and ideal fleet doctrine and match up scenario, then a lot of the ships are wrongly placed in this tier list. If you want the overall performance taking into account of AI controlled ship in normal situations, the list is also woefully inaccurate. For example, the onslaught should be easily above legion in terms of overall effectiveness, due to the sheer output potential, and in most situations damage output is king, elimination of enemy ships solves 99% of your combat problems. The only situation where the Legion might be superior is if you're going with an all-out carrier fleet, and need to stack fighter numbers. For fast mobile fleet doctrine, Odyssey is absolutely S tier. I run combat parser and my Odyssey is almost always top in damage when left to AI controlling the entire fleet, only going second place to my player controlled Paragon from time to time. The ability to go in and out to quickly kill a ship and remain in safety range is god tier perk and all such ships with laser mounts are basically S tier. It also has a variety of fitting options unlike low tech ships that tend to just do the front facing guns. Also, the tiering kind of depends a bit on whether you use the deployment point limit mod to replace ship limit. In pure vanilla without that mod, the 30 ship limit is a horrendous design and basically forces people to favor larger ships due to the obvious advantage in stacking fleet size. With that mod by default you get 600 deployment points as limit, so you can choose the option to go with efficient dp ships in large numbers. This pushes the Astral (not a bad ship) down at least one if not two tiers because you can just swarm with smaller carriers that give you better fighter/deployment ratio and also better mobility.
@@zxbc1 I like the comment but also realize that the game is "balanced" (not balanced at all lol) around DP efficiency and DP limit. Functionally removing DP limit totally breaks the game because indirect fire ships become OP and you need less and less frontline tanks and can just have infinite paper thin dps in the back line all focusing and basically instantly deleting a ship at a time. It's not a good way to play IMHO.
@@zxbc1 Agreed. it kinda hurt to see my little Hounds placed in C tier. easily the best little ships for serving the purpose of chasing down all those retreating tankers and cargo ships. they are practically free, have rugged so the D mods dont even matter, can have an assault chaingun. perfect for just throwing at pirates and overwhelming them
Doom is still S tier with skills and probably A or B tier without. I thought it was ruined too, but phase anchor with 4x light needler, 2x phase lance, 2x typhoon is really powerful. Build in missile rack and either heavy armor or hardened subsystems. Put on ITU as well and dump remaining points into capacity. It becomes a really good brawler like that and it's mines are still really effective. It took some relearning though to figure it out but you can still solo a paragon.
@Gg2 Hh ua-cam.com/video/0_EzGoVKU9E/v-deo.html here is a short video I made assaulting a simple pirate station. I might make a follow up of a solo but this shows just how fast you can chew through low tier ships solo, and then using a fleet as cover. Edit: ua-cam.com/video/IR6Me8TiELo/v-deo.html I made another demonstration with different situations against various ships. No officers in them so they're not as tanky as they could be, but still a good guide.
Honestly i just spam annihilator missiles and two of those medium annihilator varients with tracking (loses out on half the missile count in favor of tracking but still 100 missiles if you add expanded missile cargo). I then kit it out with pulse lasers, why? Because they have the same range as mine placement, so i can still reasonably kite with mines while hitting the enemy with all my weapons. Strat is to keep enemy contained with mines and shred them with missiles and suppression fire from pulse lasers. Is it the most optimal? Probably not, but its fun to use and gets the job done.
I think the Fury should be higher, because it's one of the few ships with that amount of firepower that has a burn level of 9, meaning that you can still sustained burn at 20 speed without the augmented drive field. Good for bounty hunting and exploration.
The wolf is just out-and-out my favourite ship in the game because a lot of AI controlled ships just don't really know how to fight it properly. The only time I've been destroyed in a wolf in my experience is when I've messed up and let myself get overloaded next to a bigger enemy because I didn't phase skim back in time when my flux is getting high. Put a heavy blaster on a Wold and you can go toe to toe with basically anything your size and even a lot of things that are a bit bigger than you
Link to ship designs in Discord: discord.gg/X9cfzM7fvV hope you guys enjoyed the tier list. It's completely subjective and take my opinions with a grain of salt 😅. At the end of the day it's a video game and you should pick which ever ships you like.
colossus mk3 is value imo. decent survivability if protected, 2 flight decks(longbows), good space for cargo and whatnot, ground support for raids.. 8 supplies/dp is a good deal
Ox tug early game = F tier, Ox tug late game = S tier. Burn level in fleets with capitals and capital supports like the atlas is painfully low and you will be unable to catch most midsize opponents with the baseline burn from skills + mods. In the late game fuel and supplies becomes a non-issue so you receive faster travel times, ability to engage fast targets, and ability to avoid small aggressive remnant fleets for essentially no cost.
@ Yeah, it's hard to say why I missed it, but that's all in the past. The future is here, and Tugs are a part of it :D Now, I can't see how any mid to late game fleet can survive without them, because you just want that burn speed.
Starliner’s exceptionally efficient when it comes to transportation. If you’re expecting to salvage ships, a definite must have. Also surprisingly good on other resources to boot. Makes trading crew/marines quite viable, too.
@@Aereto the price differential is never more than say, 40 credits, so you'd need to move 10,000 crew to get a decent profit. That's what, 10 transports. Meanwhile, price diff on heavy weapons to either space jihadis or pirates can easily be 600 per unit, so.. way, way easier to make it big there.
@@IvanTre Except that there's usually A, a large entry expense, and B, only a small amount of such materiel traded. Oh, and of course, they're illegal in the majority of systems, where crew are obviously not. Often enough, running weapons ends up breaking even, because the orders are easily filled by the AI. Meanwhile, stuff like supplies and crew is in constant demand, extremely low price, and often supplied for system average within the sectors they've got high demand in. Crew's not the safest thing to run due to monthly cost, but it usually makes an easy additional to my supply and fuel hauling, which tends to be my primary operation. Drugs are a better bet for trade than weapons, either way, though.
For the Apogee the fighting capability is only part of what makes it good, it also has built in Sensor Range as well as good cargo capacity and only 2 fuel / light year which is amazing on long explorations. The Pirate Colossus (Mk III?) is surprisingly okay, you get cargo and crew capacity, plus TWO fighter slots and ground combat boost for marines and shielded cargo holds for just 8 supplies/month which is pretty reasonable.
The atlass MK2 IS a piece of trash, but thats why it works so well. Basically, trash is easy to produce on mass and cheap as hell. So if your making a fleet to, say, I dunno, destroy the hegemony, it works. Your going to loose almost all of them, dont get me wrong. But better to watch 100 atlases go down than 4 paragons, yaknow?
Thanks for the series and everything, I've learned so much thru the guides and all. Only 3 months playing the game but I think I have already put around 400h in. Now, thanks to you in part, I feel so much more comfortable with the game and its mechanics. Now on my 3rd playthru, I'm aiming for 2 Champions, 2 Eradicators ( non P ), 2 Auroras, 1 XIV Legion, 1 Heron, 2 XIV Dominators, 2 Radiants + 2 Monitor and a bunch of Hammerheads and Omens as my final fleet. I really like to use the Radians as they burn at 18 so you don't need to use tugs. And 1 well designed Radian is worth 2 Paragons imo. Personally, I don't do the fighting as the AI do better job then me. I just pilot the monitor. Looking forward to another Starsector series, cheers Grumpy.
Personal favorite capital early-ish is definitely the Odyssey. Double tachyon and nothing else but PD. Anchors a fleet quite well with incredible shields and can clear the skies with PD upgrades and tactical lasers. The lack of hard flux generation is off put by just totally overpowering the enemies flux dissipation. Only really loses out to the S tier ships and AI don't use it too well but is a respectable mainstay for a player driven capital until you get a Paragon.
8:52 I think you might be misunderstanding the utility of the apogee, its got High Resolution Sensors and Surveying Equipment for a reason. it has 400 Cargo Capacity, the flux capacity of an astral and a reasonable amount of weapons to defend itself when exploring and only costs 18 supplies per month, giving it a very cheap logistical footprint (for an ad hoc cruiser) As a combat ship its mediocre compared to ships dedicated to that role but but I'd argue that's not its primary focus. It's primary focus is long distance exploration.
Also, now I think about it, not a bad support ship for bigger fleets, kinda like a smaller atlas mk2. 2 tac lasers on the front, a hil, pilums and squall, you've got a pretty good long range suppression ship.
the thing about the buffalo mk2 is that it only costs 4dp deploy which can be decreased to 2 with the right perks along with converted hangars and harpoons + extended racks makes for some really cheap and spammable firepower
Deploy them behind your battle line after enemy frigates have been dismembered to quickly delete heavier opponents. Given crew and fuel requirements though, a properly outfitted squadron of Vigilances can suite this role very well. And they can get behind the battle line more quickly.
@@matthewslivkoff5937 Just dropping in here to congratulate you on being one of the like 4 people on the planet who've figured out that deploying absolutely all of your ships at the beginning of every fight isn't always the best idea.
@@SpadeDraco it's the best way to use vangaurds and SO ships. They don't last long, but they don't HAVE to last long, use them to dominate the capture points and get rid of frigates, when they're done with their job you send them home and get out your glass cannons. You may only have 120 to 180 deployment points, but you can make full use of 240 or more if you swap out squadrons.
Sunder is my go-to destroyer. Give it a HIL & any two long range, medium-size beams... Plus the usual aux. thrusters and range extenders... max out on vents. It is unbelievably good for a destroyer, and is possibly one of the best out there. You are bringing so much power to bear, for so little cost, AND you can get them early-game. Just one of these can knock out pirate carriers and light cruisers like the falcon, and win you some big bounties. A small group of them will put the hurt on anything bigger. I haven't played with safety overrides on these, but I don't see much of a need.
By Ludd, the Prometheus mk2 was done dirty ! Great speed font it's chonk, good armor, good dakka, fighters. Clearly a pro-Mammon tierlist. (Also you're off about lashers and kites, and the mercury is a better kite, but oh well.) Fun video, thanks !
@@manarager3413 Atlas2 is just a meme downgrade from the Conquest. The only thing it has going for it is low deployment points, so that you can send in an actual ship.
Yeah it's really a decent ship, for what it is. It's not a ship that can solo other capitals, but it's quite DP efficient. Can take out most things with equal DP if you accept you're going to take some damage and don't over-rely on shields. I skip on the rear PD too. Made extensive use of them during my pather playthrough, along with various luddic addons from a few mods (luddic enhancement and the like), they weren't like, my most powerful tool, but you can deploy them very liberally.
I've been using the Odyssey as a flagship in my current game and I really think it deserves to be in A or even S tier. It is the fastest capital ship by far (almost 3 times as fast as the Onslaught), allowing you to project firepower where its needed, avoid incoming damage, and flank enemy capitals and cruisers. There are two loadouts I like to use. First is long range, with HIL, Tachyon Lance and 3 Tactical Lasers on the broadside, plus 3 medium sabot pods and a MIRV Hurricane launcher. Second is shorter range for hit-and-run tactics, replace the HIL and TL with Autopulses and the Tactical Lasers with Ion Cannons. It can kill any other ship in the game 1v1 except the Paragon, and can delete any destroyer in the game in seconds. Fire off six sabots in one volley and follow up with a Hurricane. It pilots similar to a Conquest but I think its stronger, and its top speed is 70 compared to 45 for the Conquest. Just circle your enemy at optimum range and there's not much they can do. The plasma burn is also great for ramming frigates, destroyers and even cruisers as it has the mass and momentum to do damage AND yeet the victim out of position. People seem to like the Apogee more but unlike the Apogee, the Odyssey can bear all its strongest weapons on one target very easily, it's tanky enough and fast enough that it's pretty difficult to kill. It also has two fighter bays, which I tend to fill with Spark interceptors for additional point defence. Much like the Terminator Drones of the Tempests, these Sparks can save your life if you get overloaded because they can still shoot down torps and missiles. Best flanking ship in the game in my opinion. Pair it with an Astral and support them with Tempests, Omens, Medusas, Auroras, Pirate Falcons etc. and you have a fast, manoeuvrable and deadly fleet.
I agree to all of this and best ramming train for sure. You can one shot ships with ramming and it is just so fycking funny to do that. When you have 2 or 3 of them . Enemy do not realize what hit them. Also A.I do not play this ship too bad.
Love me some dominator! I discovered it when I had a fleet full of ships surrounding one and it keep picking off my ships while just slowly losing hull. Captured that one and never looked back.
You put the Gryphon below the Venture? What?! Missile Auto-forge is omega-busted, just load the thing with crap tons of hammer missiles and some medium Sabots or Harpoons on the side and you instantly have a capital-cracking cruiser that can consistently 2-for-1 or better vs cruisers. It’s easily S-Tier in my experience, I grab them immediately whenever I find them. Them and Champions.
The problem with the Gryphon is, that the AI is absolutely terrible at using it. In player hands, it is indeed absolutely omega-busted and can easily nuke multiple capital ships; but in the AI hands, the poor thing gets obliterated in seconds at worst, and barely contributes to the fight at best.
The enforcer is one of my favorite destroyers, 5 medium balistics that can all fire one direction. Heavy autocannons and mortars can lay down heavy suppression, and torpedoes to finish off the target.
on regular enforcer 2 hvd`s and 3 heavy maulers probably, have not tested so much with these setups. heavy autocannons and mortars are good, but they have most potential on hardpoints. imo..
You don't understand how good the eagle is as a front line ship. With beams and 1000 range ballistics it can flux out and disable near anything, creating openings for your heron bombers or conquest broadsides. Not only that, thanks to it's shield tank and mobility system for avoiding the enemy, the thing won't die. It'll flux out and disable the enemy and stay safe doing it. You can also use vigilance missle frigates to support it with more finishing missles for cheap, or monitors to further increase the tankiness of your battle line.
I stick swarmers on mine, to ward off frigates and kill fighters. Try leaving the rear PD slots empty and upgrading to burst PD in the front smalls. The ship becomes immune to sabots.
It's always interesting to see, the opinions of other people. In the end, all these ship tiering are mostly opinions. I agreed with some, disagreed with others. Changed my opinion on some because of the reasoning provided, maintained the same opinion because the reason wasn't good enough.....Good video.
Standard Mudskipper is incredibly efficient cargo/crew capacity in a frigate sized package. Just starting out, you can get a dram and two mudskippers and have all the space you need for your early inner rim exploration. It's great. Super low maintenance costs.
For storage, crew, AND fuel capacity in a non-Dram frigate, no, you don't. All of the other ships you can buy that have logistical capacity even close to a Mudskipper all have a 3 supply/month or greater maintenance, while the Mudskipper is only 2. That's a huge savings in the early game. Of course, if you are looking for combat ships, by all means, the Mudskipper is terrible for that. I just like my combat ships to be combat ships and my logistics train to stay safe and out of harm's way.
@@kael2295 bruh we're talking early game logistical shit here. Heck you can do trade mission under 300 cargo with that and gain 20k-35k, additional dram for early exploration is convenient enough.
Doom is wayyyyy undertiered :P It is an invaluable asset to have in the fleet and if you personally pilot it, it is even more lethal. Even without any weapons and optimized for a mine build, it can deal tons of damage, force damage onto omni-shielded ships and such. It is a deadly ship in all circumstances, even with the speed nerf.
I think people just throw it in the simulator against a Dominator or something and then don't use it because it doesn't perform well. It's a completely different ship in the hands of a player or an AI captain that's been specialized for it.
The gryphon was the first vanilla ship that I actually did good with... that I actually felt effective with. I built it with a large cyclone reaper, two sabot srm pods, three swarmers, a double flak and vulcan cannons. All missile types set to fire all slots of that missile type together. I used it as a burst damage ship with almost all points into caps (to give the capacity I needed to get into position before pulling back.) Overload with double sabots and damage with reapers. Swarmers were for smallcraft or distraction. Double flak cannon plus the vulcans on front let me shred enemy missiles. Typically I'd hang out with a capital ship providing additional point defense until I could move forward and do some serious damage against the ships attacking my capital. I don't think the AI would be as effective, but I'll always have a soft place in my heart that the gryphon.
He did the gryphon dirty. I give them a an escort or two and watch them punch through the line. They vulnerable on their own but play their position so well. Esp for the cost of upkeep/DP
It's crazy how much mods change this tier list. I love the falcon and the eagle. But that's because with mods medium energy slots are about as good as medium ballistics, especially with pd assault conversion.
Hah. I just started playing recently, but it was fun listening to you read off your preferred shrike loadout (ion pulser, antimatter blaster, sabot) - which is exactly how my current shrikes are outfitted. They are incredibly dependable pursuit and close support ships.
One of my personal favourites is a Medusa with SO, Blasters and Needlers. It's a really cracked combination, you have enough firepower and flux to outgun and destroy most frigates and destroyers, then evade to safety with phase skimmer to recover flux. And against larger ships you can circle most cruisers and capitals thanks to how fast the ship is + the phase skimmer, get into their blind spot, and they are at your mercy. The ship is also really fast and maneuverable in general, with SO it feels like you're piloting a frigate. It's definitely my favourite ship to pilot in the entire game, it also stays relevant during the entire game. Early and mid game it's simply a powerhouse that will enable you to fight ships that would normally be too big to take on yet, or quickly equalize both fleets by hunting down enemy frigates and blowing them up in an instant. Lategame it becomes more of a support ship capable of rapid response ship and a great flanker. Two capitals fighting each other? Flank the enemy ship, distract their shield and maybe even blow up their engines, then phase away to safety. Enemy frigates surrounding your cruisers/capitals? Quickly skim there and blow a few of them up.
Grumpy if possible I would love to see the salvage run Watching a struggle bus is much more informing and entertaining than ez mode Thnx really like your vids
Enforcers actually have a high OP pool compared to other destroyers. The problem arises when you spend 50 or more points on medium ballistics and haven't the flux to fire them.
Slap on 3 hvds, or 2 hvds and a mauler. Add 4 annihilator rockets and expanded missiles. Or 4 Salamanders with Eccm. Let an aggressive officer in a tough cruiser lead. You don't have to absolutely maximize DPS on one ship if you can have multiple boats focus fire from afar. Leave the PD to specially outfitted frigates
Enforcers are one of those ships that's actually pretty solid but nobody uses because it's 1v1 simulator performance is bad. 4-6 of them with the setup you described above is stupidly effective if you group them together or send them after targets that are in the same enemy formation as each other.
@@SpadeDraco have you ever tried a good close combat enforcer for A.I. control? I haven't managed to yet. I like the idea of using them like heavy calvary, if only there was some way to synchronize the burn drives...
@@matthewslivkoff5937 Realistically they just don't have the speed, durability or flux stats to keep the pressure on for any amount of time. I've done a couple SO builds with 2x HMG, 1x Assault Chaingun and annihilators or sabots in the missle slots. They're okayish. But nowhere near as good as the massed longer range configuration.
Interesting opinions. Would never expect to see the Centurion and Sunder class that low since those two ships are always a big part of my fleets (granted I use a mod which balances fleet size around deployment cost to make frigates more viable late game). Centurions basically never die and have very good potential PD for a frigate so I use them to keep ships busy to divide and conquer while my Sunders pick off isolated enemies with either tachyon lances or autopulse lasers with extended mag. They punch waaaaay above their weight for a destroyer and I prefer them over hammerheads in a lot of cases. Its hard to calculate a lot of midline ship's worth because they're surprisingly specialized and designed to work around eachother's weaknesses, unlike what most people think about them (ex: "midliners are jacks of all trades" which isnt actually true). Part of why I always love running them.
Perhaps not the video for this question but wanted to ask anyways. What ship do you think is best to practice with when trying to get used to player controlled combat? I've been just letting the AI do my fighting since I'm too nervous to do it myself (since I really botch it everytime lol)
The Aroura, LP Brawler, or Hammerhead are all powerful and pretty easy ships to pilot. Good for learning combat without having to deal with too many mechanics.
What happened to the Eradicator? Base is really good as a line ship to protect the backline, a few of them bring a lot of dakka at range, good for transitioning from Exploring to hunting and escorting fast capitals like Conquests. Base and P good for fast Fleets, or as a SO beasts. Only problem is that you find so few of them before you start doing bounties :(
32:42 Tarsus was up until 1-2 updates ago just better Buffalo, now it has less cargo capacity but is still much safer if you end up needing to run, because it's system is burn drive insted of flare launcher and you can put SO in it, unlike the Buffalo.
I build my sunder with tachyon lance and two graviton beams. Then all the beam range extensions and shield extension to protect from flameouts. I can sit just outside the range of anything except rail guns and missiles and torps get knocked of course by the beams.
I love the pirate falcon. Two reaper typhoons, two sabots, expanded missile racks, whatever else you want on it because you won't need anything else after you bulldoze at least 10-12 ships 😆 I like to just put two long-ish range anti armor energy weapons and two annihilator pods on autofire because it looks sick to see missiles constantly flying everywhere
One thing about the revenant is that it is both a freighter and a fuel ship. I like to pimp one out with two s mod logistic mods, efficiency overhaul to reduce the high supply cost and another I can't remember atm, and then add, extra cargo holds and fuel tanks and it serves that role admirably as well as also hauling freight and making my fleet stealthy af.
Paragon is okay....made my 14th battlegrooup dominator somehow more powerful than a paragon. It can 1v1 it without damage consistently. Heavy needler for shield pressure and a Hephaestus cannon for armour damage. 2 flak cannons behind them on the medium mounts demolish missiles/fighters and denies pressure from anti shield missiles. Built in heavy armour, armoured weapon mounts, hardened shield = 2450 armour (wtf) and 11400 HP. With a officer got the shield efficiency to 0.51. it's an absolute beast that can manage a small fleet by itself. With all that armour even if they can somehow get through the shield they aren't gonna hurt it it just has so much health. Give it a reckless officer and it tries to act like a main fleet anchor battleship
The Odyssey isn't generally a ship you use to sit there and trade big hits with, except against other high speed, high maneuverable cruisers and battleships. It's a battlecruiser with plasma burn, you use it to approach at regular speed, veer off to the right to graze, fire SRM sabot swarms to smash a cruiser and destroy it with your 3 large weapon mounts, and plasma burn away when flux is maxed out and the rest of their fleet is swarming you. Then you do it again when plasma burn is recharged. Used this way it can almost fight evenly with a radiant, but some help from the fleet is always welcome there. With point defense build it can take on carrier fleets, with maneuvering skill you can outmaneuver and hit all the big low-tech ships from behind.
Brawler (standard and TT) are nice ships to have if you're looking for big battles because they have a much higher PPT than other frigates. Also, pretty sure Lasher has 5 small ballistics and 2 small missile.
Ox is ok on D tier (niche) but you must consider to buy one at least. If you want 18 burn and you dont want to SMod your paragon for an extra 2 burn drive, its cool to have. Ie: your Paragon has 17 burn and Dominator 18 (if you plan to max dps the Dominator), so 1 Ox can help to reach your max burn-ish of 18 without hull points.
There are a few vanilla ships which are missing from this Tierlist as well. How do you rate the Eradicator, Eradicator (P), Manticore and Manticore (P) ? I would also be interested in seeing your opinions on [Redacted] and Remnant Ships and a certain capital sized phase ship as well.
@Gg2 Hh I agree, I really like the fighting ability and 5x small missile slots on the Eradicator and Eradicator (P) burn drive gives it great mobility. At first I wasn't a fan because the turrets faced in weird directions but after using it I think it's great. I am generally positive towards the Manticore since it's got good weapons and a nice flak ability but I haven't made a serious effort to use it in fleets yet.
Eradicator is high A tier, I use it for eliminating pesky frigates, Eradicator (P) is even better because it's faster with its burn drive. The Manticore I'd put it in C tier. I just don't really see the point of it. Its a destroyer with a large ballistic slot, which sounds cool in practice, but if I need more large ballistics, I would just bring a cruiser like the dominator. The Manticore doesn't do well in 1v1 combat against other destroyers, so I usually avoid it.
@@Aereto Gauss cannon on Manticore is good for fluxing out frigats and siege stations. Good LR support too. Tried to use Mlolnir on it and it's always dying.
@@GrumpyThumperGaming Base eradicator with a mix of HVD, railguns and heavy maulers and long range hull mods make great gun platforms. A firing line of 3 or more is a whole lot of BRRRT.
I love the omen. The sunder is a lot of fun but is definitely a glass cannon. I like running it with the plasma cannon. The fury is awesome mid game if you run 2 in your fleet. I find the colossus pretty useful. I like the enforcer as it can pop out of nowhere and surprise ships. The wolf is awesome as flank support and hunting down fast moving retreaters. I’ve been destroyed by a kite several times, they are easy to underestimate early game. If the Hounds had shields they would be ferocious. Buffalos are definitely c tier for me.
I like the kite and it’s interceptor auto fit. Good to keep with destroyers to help them defend from fighter spam. Possibly decent for heavier ships too
Gotta question the XIV onslaught placement. Made an all armor no shield build with one and it is tearing through the campaign. I’ve had it beat most capitals outside of the paragon without even taking a point of hull damage.
Any comments on the new Eradicator and Manticore? As for the Mudskipper I did find a use for it: Spacer start early game cheap/fast salvaging/surveying. A large gas planet with 325% hazard rating requires a crew of 810 to survey and Mudskippers pack 100 crew in a frigate hull. They don't slow down Shepherds/Dram like Nebula would and have respectable cargo space as well. Plus they're dirt cheap.
Eradicator is a phenomenal ship, both the standard and the pirate version I would consider S class. The standard one is recommend SO to quickly burst down targets using accelerated ammo feeder. For the pirate version, long range and advanced turret gyros will make surprisingly accurate at a distance. It'll do a great job putting out fires where you need it with those burn drives and long reach. The Manticore is interesting. I certainly underrated it before. I'd give it a B rating. Great at super long range support and being a missle dispenser lol. It's a least worth considering in a fleet.
0:47 Cargo balloon, 5:04 Fuel balloon, 9:26 Another mid-size cargo balloon XD lol I think the reason why they exist in the game is to match the concept of pirate factions (pirates, pathers and poor player haha), who don't have strong fundamental infrastructure to manufacture standard combat ship so have no choice but to rely on inferior modified civilian-class vessel for their operation. Technically what they want to do is attacking a easy target like civilian convoy, collect goods from the wreckage and get the hell out of there asap, not having an open war against Hegemony or Tri-tachyon. Cheap ships with big cargo that can collect goods from their victim and couple of weapons to treat civilian are all they need, and that's what exactly those ship looks like in game (low price, low DP and large cargo space) Not for player ships though.
Bruh The Astral is hot garbage! I cannot begin to tell you the frustration I have been having with some of those Mission scenarios in the games main menu. Coral Nebula I think? You gotta take out an Onslaught with an Astral... and man getting the bombers to behave without S mods or officers or character points is legit a struggle. I think I have my best run at 83% and its bugging me that I haven't got the one with the Astral to 100% it's the only one! it says its medium difficulty and I have the one that is "Impossible" difficulty to 100% lol
sunders with 2 graviton beams and tachyon lance or HIL work nice for me. They stay alive thanks to they range and have serious firepower for the destroyer. At the early game they are absolutely devastating against frigates an are usable in the late game
It's so slow and fragile. Maybe with unstable injectors and expanded missile racks (+ ECCM?) you get two large missiles for 24 DP but the logistics profile is horrible.
@@BobfromSydney yeah i was waiting for support mid battle got surrounded by multiple pather colossus when i looked at my radar the Atlas 2 was all the way in the rear
@@esotericegoism7536 The worst thing about it is that the sim is an "artificial" environment since your ships start in the centre instead of having to deploy across a larger battlefield starting from the edge. So even after sim testing it's not obvious how slow the Atlas Mk II is until you deploy it in real battles. I've also noticed the opposite effect during Pirate battles if I move up quickly with my Odyssey I can often take out a lot of smaller ships before the Pirate Atlas MkII even appears on the battlefield because they are so slow.
Eradicator Light Cruiser and Vanguard frigate. Vanguard can tank larger ships at the cost of being easily outmaneuvered by frigates. Eradicator? Stock is the Hammerhead upsized to cruiser size, still filling the role of burst DPS at the cost of speed. Recommend flankers to assist closing in for the kill. Pirate version, better used in pursuit when enemies try to disengage, though there are other offerings.
Some have said that early game sunder are better than a hammerhead just because it has more utility. Hammerheads tend to get looked at more just because of their special ability which is basically the same as the brawler.
A good build for the enforcer is to go long ranged, since it's so slow, you can't expect to force a knife fight in it. For that, a single Mauler and two Hypervelocity drivers on the front three medium mounts works well, with your pick of PD on the side mounts. (I'm partial to HMGs to fend off anyone who wants to make it a close range fight.)
I use my apogee like an aroura with heavy + antimatter blasters and safety overrides bc its shield is strong enough to really let you get in there and hang
I feel like you're wrong with the monitor, not because it isn't a great ship, it is, but because while it is very tanky I've noticed Tachyon lances obliterate it's because they seem to do damage through the shield. I figured this out because people were saying you can tank a paragon, but I went against one in the simulations and lances killed it quickly
Great Tier List; thanks for you opinion and not too surprised about your S Tier after seeing the Zero to Hero let's Play :-) Surprised though you put the Astral so high since I've never seen you use one ! Myself I haven't used it much so need to play with it some more.
I'm still new enough to the game that I can't identify most of the ships by simply looking. Any chance you have this written down somewhere? If not, no biggie - I'll just watch it again.
I will add the name for the ships for the next tier list, which will be for the next update, those are the kinds of things that are not know until someone complains.
I think you're mad underselling the Apogee. yeah it's not the best cruiser at soloing capital ships, but it's 18 deployment points, ofc it's not the best at that, it costs less than 75% of a dominator or champion. however it's got the strongest shield tank of any cruiser in the game, and works amazing as a supporting cruiser to your true line cruisers or capitals like the dominator or champion, stick a HIL or tachyon on it + a MLRS and it'll do wonders picking off annoying destroyers/frigates and pressuring opposing capitals/cruisers Plus it's got an amazing logistical suite for a ship as capable in combat as it is. 400 cargo, 450 max crew, 200 fuel capacity, only 2 fuel/ly and 2 built in logistical hullmods.
Good question. I'd definitely put it in A tier. It's great at dishing out a ton of firepower in different directions and it's fast, making it excellent for dealing with frigates and destroyers.
@@GrumpyThumperGaming thx a lot for telling me that the erradicator is quite good, i was planning on using a lot of them with other ships for taking down fleets (and also because i watched a video where some erradicators and conquests destroyed some big fleets) and i didn't know if they were useful or not. Also, do you have a video dedicated for proper ship refitting? I'm quite a beginner in terms of making good ships and some advice would be very helpful to me
Pirate colossus with shield shunt and bulkheads and integrated point defense ai slaps. Basically just an indestructible and cheaply maintained carrier. You can deploy like 20 of them at once. As far as i know, its the highest ratio of durability to deployment cost out of any loadout. Even more than the invictus dreadnaught
No, the Griffin with 2 Large Missle, 3 Medium Missle and Small Missles would be completely overpowered! With the missle hull mod and the skill I would go for Griffin only fleets.
The only reason atlas mk.2 was trash in 0.91 is because it is uber slow in space but in 0.95 you can have free +2 burn for civ ships, but in fleets it is a very good artillery ship. For me it is around B or C tier as it has low dp and has alot of dmg potential with 2 large ballistics, 2 missiles and accelerated ammo feeder.
I really like the atlas mk2 when you have a good frontline. People hate it but they dont understand the firepower it provides for 24DP. Use 2 of them on an enemy capital and dish more dps than a Paragon.
I've learned to use the Odyssey, you just strap 2 plasma cannons and put them in autofire, with maxed flux capacity and dissipation and run circles around everything. You can have some harpoons or typhon reapers, bu the plasma cannons will melt just about anything. For fighters, longbow bombers seem to work wonders, as a way to break enemy shields. Seriously, try it out sometime. There are few more satisfying things than to get behind a onslaugh or legion and just wreck their shit up.
For the Falcon-class, put assault chaingun on the ballistic hardpoints and graviton beam on the energetic points. Put high scatterer amplifier to make a pressure on your oppenent. You have a ship that can destroy a Dominator-class if you play aggressive.
I've been working on the TT Brawler, it definitely can't take 2 medium slot guns or like you give it Graviton beams and make it an escort for a sunder or something to just kill ships with laser pointer spam. But I put a heavy blaster in one slot and 2 ion canons and then OP willing a low cost missile, i tend to test against a solo enforcer and this setup reliably wins over it, the biggest issue I've faced is one I've noticed with all brawler variants is that they hate getting up close to other ships, their AI is weird and I had to give it a shield shunt to prevent it from backing off out of opposing weapons range but not dropping its shields to vent.
Griffon is fine as it is. Just because it doesn't have more large slots doesn't make it not a missile cruiser. Mediums are perfectly fine. It's main purpose is to focus on sustained missile support with missile racks and a officer in it almost never runs out of ammo, 2 harpoons, 3 small sabots and the large can be anything you need. Never take salamander or pilums with it as it's literally a wasted slot. Compared to any other ship it will still be firing missiles long after any other ship in the game.
Atlas 2 is a great fire support in player hands. Max out flux dissipation and venting speed, slap 2x Gauss Cannons and Hurricane MIRV and you've got a really powerful ship for only 30DP. B tier IMO Conquest is definitely an A+ tier. Shield stats alone don't mean squat. What matters is flux stats and the type of ship. The firepower coming off a Conquest and its mobility means things shouldn't be getting near enough to need anything better. And the best part about Conquests is that the AI handles them really well. Can't say that about most capital ships. They can keep it alive and get kills. What more could you ask? Legion I'd put B tier. AI is pretty meh with it, and it tries to be too much and doesn't have the OP for it. If I wanted to add fighters/bombers to my fleet I'd much rather use Herons. Way more cost effective and able to follow the flow of the battle and move fast enough to keep out of danger. Legion XIV, however, I'd give it A tier. Only reason it isn't S is because the bombers slows it down at chewing through capitals, and runs out of missiles before it can take advantage of its good Peak Performance. You're sleeping on the Odyssey. S tier. Firepower and tank of a capital, mobility almost better than a destroyer, can beat any capital with the right build, and has great stats for exploration. The skill ceiling is very high. A capital sized scalpel. Onslaught C tier. AI Conquest always does better. Only value is for piloting it to bully the badly-piloted slow and weak AI ships, or for people who feel good about smashing smaller fleets. Does best with Shield Shunt but that also gives it a limited lifetime. Too expensive for a damage sponge when Monitors exist. You're sleeping on the Prometheus 2 as well. Very strong bargain ship, although tough to outfit right, as evidenced by how bad the ones you face in combat are. Very cost effective ship for starting your campaigns out. Squall, HIL and M2AC's is all you need to start it rolling. And unlike the Atlas 2, its specialized storage wasn't completely obliterated. A tier. Not even letting the Prometheus off? It's more cost effective than Phaeton and has the OP to give it the logistic hullmods it needs, as well as Unstable Injectors and some weapons to give it a better chance to flee when necessary. It's also necessary for exploring so you aren't just dumping all the fuel you find, or getting in trouble or cutting your trips short because of a dry spell or you ran out of space for rescued ships in your fleet. And the game is literally impossible once your campaign matures and big fleets become the norm. Apogee....D tier. Can't do anything particularly well. Not worth the cost for any of the things it provides. Nerfed into oblivion. RIP. Doom is still pretty strong. You just gotta be smarter when piloting. Can't just weave through enemy fleets with impunity. And now it actually struggles with OP decisions just like most ships. It's worth its BP. It's just not overpowered anymore.
51:31 Try SO Scarab approach with 4xIR pulse and Ion/Antimatter blaster - it has great speed and shields and can shred most frigates and even destroyers in first minutes of combat. Also unrelated but Atlas Mk2 is better than F tier for what it does. Yes, poor armor and speed and CR recovery are all awful but the sheer amount of dakka it provides for 24 points should not be underestimated. It is F tier in being frontline and tanking damage but I'd say it is at least A tier as a fire support ship/anti fighter defense. I like it alot with ITU Hellbores and ECCM Locusts. Other F tiers like Tarsus or Buffalo Mk2 also shouldn't be underestimated - they are the cheapest engagement point wise Converted Hangars in the game. Not that much better as a carrier but definitely not garbage.
Apogee's are cool I never go without one I literally always build it as a long range support type role with a extremely high powered energy weapon on the front and a squall, get that range mod for the energy weapons, and dump the rest of the OP into shield stuff. makes for a great poker/ fire drawing ship and it rips ass with some modded weapons. the flux stats are so good I don't even rig it with any PD
With how much you like large missile slots, I'm surprised you don't like the atlas mk2. 24 dp for 2 large missile slots and enough ballistic slots to deny missiles or fighter retaliation seems up your alley. I like medium energy slots. They aren't as powerful in raw damage like a missile but they have a lot of utility in graviton beams and ion beams. Feel like there's some untapped potential there.
I would like the atlas mk2 if it had better armor and shielding. right now it's just a balloon, granted it's a balloon spikes (missles and small ballistics) but a balloon none the less.
@@GrumpyThumperGaming I can't argue with that. Though with everything else in the pirate arsenal, I rarely see anything bigger than a frigate get close enough to a backline atlas mk2 if I build the Frontline right. And with the flak it can bring up, a frigate and anything smaller is risking a lot to try and get that close. Devastator canons are low Flux ways to get this ship a pretty large no fly zone. But at the end of the day, the conquest is a better ship in almost every way.
the Eradicator is a phenomenal ship. Excellent weapon armaments and great placements, very well armored and each variant has a good special ability. Would strongly recommend it. The Manticore on the other hand... it's a bit awkward, to say the least. Not sure how to build it, so I often leave it out of my fleet in favor of better destroyers.
Love piloting the Harbridger. Putting reaper missiles in the rear slots and a well timed quantum disruption can wreck any ship. Pretty useless and expensive in the AI's hands tho.
Non-pirate shades are easily A or even S for me. While they can only take on up to cruisers 1v1 (which is already good for a frigate), strapping a swarm of 4-5 piloted shades with Wolfpack and 2 AM blasters each and they can take on some serious fights. Team them up with a decent fleet comp and they tear things apart with ease.
The sunder is awesome if the players use it. But it is terrible if you let the AI use it like all "glass cannon" ships. When piloted by the player it works very well with 3 phase lances, both with SO for velocity or increased laser range hullmod.
man I encountered a monitor in someone's fleet the other day, i think it was a hege merchant or something idk, and i was like why isnt this damn thing dying? I shot those red laser rockets into it, which up the flux on capital ships significantly, and he was just like "thats cool bro lol"
it was, it just wasn't included on the list I chose. it's a great ship and if you want to see me use it (to questionable degrees of success) check out Rum Runners.
@@GrumpyThumperGaming So far, it's been my workhorse. I only recently suffered a defeat at the hands a particularly spicy space station fortress that I hadn't fought before.
"pather colossus is a bad ship"
*me remembers people underestimating pather fleets and dying to them*
thats what im thinking in rcc6, ah just another lud must be easy.
then every last bit of my high tech ship crumble to dust
Panthers just sometimes have high tier stations and large fleets even if their ships suck and ko themselves if the battle takes too long.
Pather colossus is a bad ship, clearly a normal colossus can beat it easily.
@@samuilmanchev1842 Nice joke bro, Pather Colossus is the best for shooting a billion missiles and missing half of them
I actually like the mk3 variant. It's a condor with no missile but extra ordinance points for support stuff.
"Why would they rig a Prometheus as a battle ship?"
Irony most likely, Pathers hate space travel so rigging the thing that carries all that fuel that allows it is probably symbolic.
Was pretty sure they just used them mostly as improvised explosives.
because its a pretty damn good desing when you dont care to come back alive
@@Gakusangi
Only in mods
@@DCdabest it's in base lore. Pathers used Prometheus as IED at least few times. And it really comes to mind, considering how fuel could be used straight for orbital bombarment, then why you just won't turn Prometheus into station sized grenade? And, well, there are a thing behind it too. Prometheus has brought a fire to humans, a light in other words too. Now it's bringing a light of Ludd.
"The fanatical Pathers have discovered an ironic sense of justice in converting the tanker which carries what they call 'Infernium' - AM fuel - into a hulking implement of holy war. Holding tanks and loading ports have been chopped apart and converted into hangars or gun mounts while sections of pumping rig have been torn off to be replaced with huge armor plates. The curved bow of the primary fuel tank has been cored and refit to spew barrages of missiles at those who serve Moloch that they may perhaps find absolution in blessed oblivion."
Dont forget: the Shepherd is a drone Tender AND has salvaging stuff build in. So you get a similar Bonus in salvaging like with the salvage rig AND you can use the shepherd in combat. Even when the Mining drones doesnt do that much, they can annoy frigs.
Generally i try to use Shepherd and Wayfarer as PD Support ships. Very very good in that Position.
I love the Shep because it's
A) Cheap to buy and run.
B) Carries a very reasonable amount of cargo/fuel.
C) Can fight.
D) Helps with surveying and salvaging.
When I'm doing explorer start I'll use 3-4 of these with my Apogee and just have them all defensive, then give them militarized hulls and salamanders. The mining pods don't do a lot of damage but 3-4 swarms of them will make those garbage pirate ships back up or explode. I'll also put bulkheads on them because I don't care if they get a bunch of D mods from popping every second or third fight. Just have them protect another ship.
Legit one of my most used ships is the drone tender! S Tier!
@@fugitiveunknown7806 I have two spacer start let's plays that start out with me amassing drone tenders! S tier ship!
@@fugitiveunknown7806 sheps rule. around 80 survey is good target
Didn't realize the shepherd had the salvage bonus. I can't really see deploying them in combat after the very early game, but if they're a cheap salvage vessel, then just keeping it in fleet is fine.
I was also an enforcer hater, until my gf, a _brand-new_ Starsector player, randomly slapped 4 assault chainguns and safety overrides on an enforcer that she picked up for cheap, without even reading what anything does. She did not even read the quest texts, she just went straight into bounty hunting.
Mother of God... It really just works.
Prometheus got absolutely gipped being below the phaeton, its invaluable for mid/late game in terms of force projection. it carries 3.75x the fuel and only costs 2.5x the supplies and 3x the fuel/lightyear. a single prometheus can get a large fleet to the edge of the sector and back with time for detours and still have fuel to spare. logistically cheaper than fielding 4 phaetons and lets you have 3 more combat ships in a full fleet. admittedly the burn level of 6 is non ideal but with aug drive mod it brings it back up to 8 which is what most of your cruisers are anyway, plus the atlas is also 6. By the time you fleet is big enough that you need another phaeton you should just buy a prometheus instead.
10 if you do bulk transport
@@Kaiser282 don't forget militarised systems.
And since fuel is so cheap at Nachiketa, you can also employ a couple of tugs to go even faster.
@@IvanTre I think if you install military subsystems you lose the bonus for bulk transport but I've never tested that to make sure. If you can that's a burn of 11.
@@Kaiser282 Hmm, I don't think you lose it. Gonna check.
Bombarding people before a tough ground battle needs a lot of fuel too. Bombarding the Xhan capital took 18.5k fuel, ain't no phaeton allowing that
Disco Donut being S tier doesn't surprise me tbh, Doom should be at least A tier since it still is quite powerful in the right hands, could You make a part 2 to include things like the Domain era drone ships, [REDACTED] and the Eradicators?
Blanket tier list kind of doesn't mean much. If we're talking about peak performance under player control and ideal fleet doctrine and match up scenario, then a lot of the ships are wrongly placed in this tier list. If you want the overall performance taking into account of AI controlled ship in normal situations, the list is also woefully inaccurate. For example, the onslaught should be easily above legion in terms of overall effectiveness, due to the sheer output potential, and in most situations damage output is king, elimination of enemy ships solves 99% of your combat problems. The only situation where the Legion might be superior is if you're going with an all-out carrier fleet, and need to stack fighter numbers.
For fast mobile fleet doctrine, Odyssey is absolutely S tier. I run combat parser and my Odyssey is almost always top in damage when left to AI controlling the entire fleet, only going second place to my player controlled Paragon from time to time. The ability to go in and out to quickly kill a ship and remain in safety range is god tier perk and all such ships with laser mounts are basically S tier. It also has a variety of fitting options unlike low tech ships that tend to just do the front facing guns.
Also, the tiering kind of depends a bit on whether you use the deployment point limit mod to replace ship limit. In pure vanilla without that mod, the 30 ship limit is a horrendous design and basically forces people to favor larger ships due to the obvious advantage in stacking fleet size. With that mod by default you get 600 deployment points as limit, so you can choose the option to go with efficient dp ships in large numbers. This pushes the Astral (not a bad ship) down at least one if not two tiers because you can just swarm with smaller carriers that give you better fighter/deployment ratio and also better mobility.
@@zxbc1 I like the comment but also realize that the game is "balanced" (not balanced at all lol) around DP efficiency and DP limit. Functionally removing DP limit totally breaks the game because indirect fire ships become OP and you need less and less frontline tanks and can just have infinite paper thin dps in the back line all focusing and basically instantly deleting a ship at a time. It's not a good way to play IMHO.
@@zxbc1 Agreed. it kinda hurt to see my little Hounds placed in C tier. easily the best little ships for serving the purpose of chasing down all those retreating tankers and cargo ships. they are practically free, have rugged so the D mods dont even matter, can have an assault chaingun. perfect for just throwing at pirates and overwhelming them
Doom mulches destroyers and frigs, but it struggles against anything it cant alpha to death.
"4 capital ships is excessive"
My fellow pather in Luddic, you can never have enough big guns. fly in dark mode and fire a big fucking gun.
Doom is still S tier with skills and probably A or B tier without. I thought it was ruined too, but phase anchor with 4x light needler, 2x phase lance, 2x typhoon is really powerful. Build in missile rack and either heavy armor or hardened subsystems. Put on ITU as well and dump remaining points into capacity. It becomes a really good brawler like that and it's mines are still really effective. It took some relearning though to figure it out but you can still solo a paragon.
@Gg2 Hh ua-cam.com/video/0_EzGoVKU9E/v-deo.html here is a short video I made assaulting a simple pirate station. I might make a follow up of a solo but this shows just how fast you can chew through low tier ships solo, and then using a fleet as cover.
Edit: ua-cam.com/video/IR6Me8TiELo/v-deo.html I made another demonstration with different situations against various ships. No officers in them so they're not as tanky as they could be, but still a good guide.
@Gg2 Hh If you don't like the changes there is a popular mod which un-nerfs it. It's still very usable like the OP said.
Get a doom with antimatter and reaper launchers and you can kill anything with a bit of luck and speed
@@blackopsy9 whats the name of the mod? I cant find it after searching for a while now
Honestly i just spam annihilator missiles and two of those medium annihilator varients with tracking (loses out on half the missile count in favor of tracking but still 100 missiles if you add expanded missile cargo). I then kit it out with pulse lasers, why? Because they have the same range as mine placement, so i can still reasonably kite with mines while hitting the enemy with all my weapons.
Strat is to keep enemy contained with mines and shred them with missiles and suppression fire from pulse lasers.
Is it the most optimal? Probably not, but its fun to use and gets the job done.
I think the Fury should be higher, because it's one of the few ships with that amount of firepower that has a burn level of 9, meaning that you can still sustained burn at 20 speed without the augmented drive field. Good for bounty hunting and exploration.
Its also the fastest cruiser if you get systems expertise, it can almost catch up to a wolf in a chase.
The wolf is just out-and-out my favourite ship in the game because a lot of AI controlled ships just don't really know how to fight it properly. The only time I've been destroyed in a wolf in my experience is when I've messed up and let myself get overloaded next to a bigger enemy because I didn't phase skim back in time when my flux is getting high. Put a heavy blaster on a Wold and you can go toe to toe with basically anything your size and even a lot of things that are a bit bigger than you
Link to ship designs in Discord:
discord.gg/X9cfzM7fvV
hope you guys enjoyed the tier list. It's completely subjective and take my opinions with a grain of salt 😅. At the end of the day it's a video game and you should pick which ever ships you like.
Can't enter your discord, please give a link? Thank you in advance
@@tonymendonca8144 I fixed the link, should be working now 👍
@@GrumpyThumperGaming Thank you for your videos and for fixing it!
colossus mk3 is value imo. decent survivability if protected, 2 flight decks(longbows), good space for cargo and whatnot, ground support for raids.. 8 supplies/dp is a good deal
How dare you disrespect eradicator
Ox tug early game = F tier, Ox tug late game = S tier. Burn level in fleets with capitals and capital supports like the atlas is painfully low and you will be unable to catch most midsize opponents with the baseline burn from skills + mods. In the late game fuel and supplies becomes a non-issue so you receive faster travel times, ability to engage fast targets, and ability to avoid small aggressive remnant fleets for essentially no cost.
This ship changed my life. It was added since last time I play and its nice not having augmented burn drive all the time
@@mrbouncelol How long ago the last time was? Ox has been around at least for 8 years
@ That goes to show you a lot then doesn't it? Maybe I need to read a book. I played 400 hours and never noticed this ship :'(
@@mrbouncelol tbh it's easy to miss it being a small, frigate size one and, when you'd need a tug, you are mainly looking at bigger ships.
@ Yeah, it's hard to say why I missed it, but that's all in the past. The future is here, and Tugs are a part of it :D
Now, I can't see how any mid to late game fleet can survive without them, because you just want that burn speed.
Starliner’s exceptionally efficient when it comes to transportation. If you’re expecting to salvage ships, a definite must have. Also surprisingly good on other resources to boot. Makes trading crew/marines quite viable, too.
Especially when trading in locations on demand. Best in early leveling from profits.
I tend to use them over other troop transport. Quantity is it's own quality on raids.
@@Aereto the price differential is never more than say, 40 credits, so you'd need to move 10,000 crew to get a decent profit. That's what, 10 transports.
Meanwhile, price diff on heavy weapons to either space jihadis or pirates can easily be 600 per unit, so.. way, way easier to make it big there.
@@IvanTre
Except that there's usually A, a large entry expense, and B, only a small amount of such materiel traded. Oh, and of course, they're illegal in the majority of systems, where crew are obviously not.
Often enough, running weapons ends up breaking even, because the orders are easily filled by the AI.
Meanwhile, stuff like supplies and crew is in constant demand, extremely low price, and often supplied for system average within the sectors they've got high demand in.
Crew's not the safest thing to run due to monthly cost, but it usually makes an easy additional to my supply and fuel hauling, which tends to be my primary operation.
Drugs are a better bet for trade than weapons, either way, though.
@@theriveracis5172 heavy weapons aren't illegal everywhere, there's plenty of freeports. And pirates often have the biggest shortfalls, so..
For the Apogee the fighting capability is only part of what makes it good, it also has built in Sensor Range as well as good cargo capacity and only 2 fuel / light year which is amazing on long explorations.
The Pirate Colossus (Mk III?) is surprisingly okay, you get cargo and crew capacity, plus TWO fighter slots and ground combat boost for marines and shielded cargo holds for just 8 supplies/month which is pretty reasonable.
Yeah, the pirate colossus isn't S nor A tier, but it doesn't deserve bottom tier
I agree, with fleet size 30 it fills a lot of roles, and it's ground combat bonus is basically required if you want to do mega ground battles imo
The atlass MK2 IS a piece of trash, but thats why it works so well.
Basically, trash is easy to produce on mass and cheap as hell. So if your making a fleet to, say, I dunno, destroy the hegemony, it works.
Your going to loose almost all of them, dont get me wrong. But better to watch 100 atlases go down than 4 paragons, yaknow?
When you know Atlas Mk2 can kill Onslaught. Or two of them worth a Paragon, you probably build them wrong
With a strong enough vanguard, the atlas mk 2 brings a stupid amount of armament for it's DP cost, it's the epitome of a glass cannon.
@@bryantan8654 its the peak of pirate tech after all
Thanks for the series and everything, I've learned so much thru the guides and all. Only 3 months playing the game but I think I have already put around 400h in.
Now, thanks to you in part, I feel so much more comfortable with the game and its mechanics.
Now on my 3rd playthru, I'm aiming for 2 Champions, 2 Eradicators ( non P ), 2 Auroras, 1 XIV Legion, 1 Heron, 2 XIV Dominators, 2 Radiants + 2 Monitor and a bunch of Hammerheads and Omens as my final fleet.
I really like to use the Radians as they burn at 18 so you don't need to use tugs. And 1 well designed Radian is worth 2 Paragons imo.
Personally, I don't do the fighting as the AI do better job then me. I just pilot the monitor.
Looking forward to another Starsector series, cheers Grumpy.
Personal favorite capital early-ish is definitely the Odyssey. Double tachyon and nothing else but PD. Anchors a fleet quite well with incredible shields and can clear the skies with PD upgrades and tactical lasers. The lack of hard flux generation is off put by just totally overpowering the enemies flux dissipation. Only really loses out to the S tier ships and AI don't use it too well but is a respectable mainstay for a player driven capital until you get a Paragon.
This randomly popped up on my home page and I’m happy it did. Thanks for making it.
8:52 I think you might be misunderstanding the utility of the apogee, its got High Resolution Sensors and Surveying Equipment for a reason.
it has 400 Cargo Capacity, the flux capacity of an astral and a reasonable amount of weapons to defend itself when exploring and only costs 18 supplies per month, giving it a very cheap logistical footprint (for an ad hoc cruiser)
As a combat ship its mediocre compared to ships dedicated to that role but but I'd argue that's not its primary focus. It's primary focus is long distance exploration.
Also, now I think about it, not a bad support ship for bigger fleets, kinda like a smaller atlas mk2. 2 tac lasers on the front, a hil, pilums and squall, you've got a pretty good long range suppression ship.
Apogees are also excellent against Phase ships, with 360 shields, HIL and Swarmer Missiles.
Also, one of the best PD systems in the game is a plus.
Oh man that squall on apogee is literally the biggest reason i still deploy it for combat
the thing about the buffalo mk2 is that it only costs 4dp deploy which can be decreased to 2 with the right perks along with converted hangars and harpoons + extended racks makes for some really cheap and spammable firepower
The weakness of all the pirate ships is your 30 ship limit in your fleet tbh. Or whatever the number is.
Deploy them behind your battle line after enemy frigates have been dismembered to quickly delete heavier opponents.
Given crew and fuel requirements though, a properly outfitted squadron of Vigilances can suite this role very well. And they can get behind the battle line more quickly.
@@matthewslivkoff5937 Just dropping in here to congratulate you on being one of the like 4 people on the planet who've figured out that deploying absolutely all of your ships at the beginning of every fight isn't always the best idea.
@@SpadeDraco it's the best way to use vangaurds and SO ships.
They don't last long, but they don't HAVE to last long, use them to dominate the capture points and get rid of frigates, when they're done with their job you send them home and get out your glass cannons.
You may only have 120 to 180 deployment points, but you can make full use of 240 or more if you swap out squadrons.
Sunder is my go-to destroyer. Give it a HIL & any two long range, medium-size beams... Plus the usual aux. thrusters and range extenders... max out on vents. It is unbelievably good for a destroyer, and is possibly one of the best out there. You are bringing so much power to bear, for so little cost, AND you can get them early-game. Just one of these can knock out pirate carriers and light cruisers like the falcon, and win you some big bounties. A small group of them will put the hurt on anything bigger. I haven't played with safety overrides on these, but I don't see much of a need.
By Ludd, the Prometheus mk2 was done dirty ! Great speed font it's chonk, good armor, good dakka, fighters. Clearly a pro-Mammon tierlist. (Also you're off about lashers and kites, and the mercury is a better kite, but oh well.)
Fun video, thanks !
Any vid that rates Atlas MKII low just doesn't know the power of the civ caps. The Atlas requires a certain playstyle... Which he obviously doesn't do
@@manarager3413 Atlas2 is just a meme downgrade from the Conquest. The only thing it has going for it is low deployment points, so that you can send in an actual ship.
Yeah it's really a decent ship, for what it is. It's not a ship that can solo other capitals, but it's quite DP efficient. Can take out most things with equal DP if you accept you're going to take some damage and don't over-rely on shields. I skip on the rear PD too.
Made extensive use of them during my pather playthrough, along with various luddic addons from a few mods (luddic enhancement and the like), they weren't like, my most powerful tool, but you can deploy them very liberally.
I've been using the Odyssey as a flagship in my current game and I really think it deserves to be in A or even S tier. It is the fastest capital ship by far (almost 3 times as fast as the Onslaught), allowing you to project firepower where its needed, avoid incoming damage, and flank enemy capitals and cruisers. There are two loadouts I like to use. First is long range, with HIL, Tachyon Lance and 3 Tactical Lasers on the broadside, plus 3 medium sabot pods and a MIRV Hurricane launcher. Second is shorter range for hit-and-run tactics, replace the HIL and TL with Autopulses and the Tactical Lasers with Ion Cannons.
It can kill any other ship in the game 1v1 except the Paragon, and can delete any destroyer in the game in seconds. Fire off six sabots in one volley and follow up with a Hurricane. It pilots similar to a Conquest but I think its stronger, and its top speed is 70 compared to 45 for the Conquest. Just circle your enemy at optimum range and there's not much they can do. The plasma burn is also great for ramming frigates, destroyers and even cruisers as it has the mass and momentum to do damage AND yeet the victim out of position.
People seem to like the Apogee more but unlike the Apogee, the Odyssey can bear all its strongest weapons on one target very easily, it's tanky enough and fast enough that it's pretty difficult to kill. It also has two fighter bays, which I tend to fill with Spark interceptors for additional point defence. Much like the Terminator Drones of the Tempests, these Sparks can save your life if you get overloaded because they can still shoot down torps and missiles.
Best flanking ship in the game in my opinion. Pair it with an Astral and support them with Tempests, Omens, Medusas, Auroras, Pirate Falcons etc. and you have a fast, manoeuvrable and deadly fleet.
it is for sure S tier. just strap it, two plasma cannons and a bit PD, skill with two system charges and you can solo whole fleets with it.
I agree to all of this and best ramming train for sure. You can one shot ships with ramming and it is just so fycking funny to do that. When you have 2 or 3 of them . Enemy do not realize what hit them. Also A.I do not play this ship too bad.
Odyssey is S tier for sure
Love me some dominator! I discovered it when I had a fleet full of ships surrounding one and it keep picking off my ships while just slowly losing hull. Captured that one and never looked back.
Slap some safety overides, heavy needlers, assault guns, and reapers for fun times
You put the Gryphon below the Venture? What?! Missile Auto-forge is omega-busted, just load the thing with crap tons of hammer missiles and some medium Sabots or Harpoons on the side and you instantly have a capital-cracking cruiser that can consistently 2-for-1 or better vs cruisers.
It’s easily S-Tier in my experience, I grab them immediately whenever I find them. Them and Champions.
The problem with the Gryphon is, that the AI is absolutely terrible at using it. In player hands, it is indeed absolutely omega-busted and can easily nuke multiple capital ships; but in the AI hands, the poor thing gets obliterated in seconds at worst, and barely contributes to the fight at best.
AWESOME fun work. Now do every single mod ship!
Well that’s a tall order, popular mods for sure, but all of them? Nah fam, that’s madness
The enforcer is one of my favorite destroyers, 5 medium balistics that can all fire one direction. Heavy autocannons and mortars can lay down heavy suppression, and torpedoes to finish off the target.
id go SO. 4 heavy machineguns and a chaingun
on regular enforcer 2 hvd`s and 3 heavy maulers probably, have not tested so much with these setups. heavy autocannons and mortars are good, but they have most potential on hardpoints. imo..
You don't understand how good the eagle is as a front line ship. With beams and 1000 range ballistics it can flux out and disable near anything, creating openings for your heron bombers or conquest broadsides. Not only that, thanks to it's shield tank and mobility system for avoiding the enemy, the thing won't die. It'll flux out and disable the enemy and stay safe doing it. You can also use vigilance missle frigates to support it with more finishing missles for cheap, or monitors to further increase the tankiness of your battle line.
I stick swarmers on mine, to ward off frigates and kill fighters.
Try leaving the rear PD slots empty and upgrading to burst PD in the front smalls. The ship becomes immune to sabots.
The Venture does not increase post salvage loot. Only surveying.
It's always interesting to see, the opinions of other people. In the end, all these ship tiering are mostly opinions. I agreed with some, disagreed with others. Changed my opinion on some because of the reasoning provided, maintained the same opinion because the reason wasn't good enough.....Good video.
Ship tiers in starsector aren't good since there are too many weapons, hullmods and skills that can determine how good a ship can be.
Standard Mudskipper is incredibly efficient cargo/crew capacity in a frigate sized package. Just starting out, you can get a dram and two mudskippers and have all the space you need for your early inner rim exploration. It's great. Super low maintenance costs.
The issue with the mudskipper is, is that you ger far, far better ships in the same price segment
For storage, crew, AND fuel capacity in a non-Dram frigate, no, you don't. All of the other ships you can buy that have logistical capacity even close to a Mudskipper all have a 3 supply/month or greater maintenance, while the Mudskipper is only 2. That's a huge savings in the early game.
Of course, if you are looking for combat ships, by all means, the Mudskipper is terrible for that. I just like my combat ships to be combat ships and my logistics train to stay safe and out of harm's way.
@@kael2295 bruh we're talking early game logistical shit here. Heck you can do trade mission under 300 cargo with that and gain 20k-35k, additional dram for early exploration is convenient enough.
@@gokikuburi8653 i dont know. With the money you got from beginning you could get better ships with more cargo
Nice! Can you also do another tier list on weapons?
Doom is wayyyyy undertiered :P It is an invaluable asset to have in the fleet and if you personally pilot it, it is even more lethal. Even without any weapons and optimized for a mine build, it can deal tons of damage, force damage onto omni-shielded ships and such. It is a deadly ship in all circumstances, even with the speed nerf.
I think people just throw it in the simulator against a Dominator or something and then don't use it because it doesn't perform well.
It's a completely different ship in the hands of a player or an AI captain that's been specialized for it.
The gryphon was the first vanilla ship that I actually did good with... that I actually felt effective with. I built it with a large cyclone reaper, two sabot srm pods, three swarmers, a double flak and vulcan cannons. All missile types set to fire all slots of that missile type together. I used it as a burst damage ship with almost all points into caps (to give the capacity I needed to get into position before pulling back.) Overload with double sabots and damage with reapers. Swarmers were for smallcraft or distraction. Double flak cannon plus the vulcans on front let me shred enemy missiles. Typically I'd hang out with a capital ship providing additional point defense until I could move forward and do some serious damage against the ships attacking my capital.
I don't think the AI would be as effective, but I'll always have a soft place in my heart that the gryphon.
He did the gryphon dirty. I give them a an escort or two and watch them punch through the line. They vulnerable on their own but play their position so well. Esp for the cost of upkeep/DP
Gryphon was the domino that lead to my run cracking stations, he's just wrong about it.
@@Wytooken what do you recommend for escorts?
It's crazy how much mods change this tier list. I love the falcon and the eagle. But that's because with mods medium energy slots are about as good as medium ballistics, especially with pd assault conversion.
Hah. I just started playing recently, but it was fun listening to you read off your preferred shrike loadout (ion pulser, antimatter blaster, sabot) - which is exactly how my current shrikes are outfitted. They are incredibly dependable pursuit and close support ships.
it's a good ship to practice piloting and IMO very fun
Pirate Shrike trades 10 OP and replaces 1 small energy mount for 1 small hybrid mount. Imho it is worth because of the flexibility when starting out
One of my personal favourites is a Medusa with SO, Blasters and Needlers. It's a really cracked combination, you have enough firepower and flux to outgun and destroy most frigates and destroyers, then evade to safety with phase skimmer to recover flux. And against larger ships you can circle most cruisers and capitals thanks to how fast the ship is + the phase skimmer, get into their blind spot, and they are at your mercy. The ship is also really fast and maneuverable in general, with SO it feels like you're piloting a frigate. It's definitely my favourite ship to pilot in the entire game, it also stays relevant during the entire game. Early and mid game it's simply a powerhouse that will enable you to fight ships that would normally be too big to take on yet, or quickly equalize both fleets by hunting down enemy frigates and blowing them up in an instant. Lategame it becomes more of a support ship capable of rapid response ship and a great flanker. Two capitals fighting each other? Flank the enemy ship, distract their shield and maybe even blow up their engines, then phase away to safety. Enemy frigates surrounding your cruisers/capitals? Quickly skim there and blow a few of them up.
that's a really good build. would make for a good Hyperion substitute until you can get your hands on one
Grumpy if possible I would love to see the salvage run
Watching a struggle bus is much more informing and entertaining than ez mode
Thnx really like your vids
Enforcers actually have a high OP pool compared to other destroyers.
The problem arises when you spend 50 or more points on medium ballistics and haven't the flux to fire them.
Slap on 3 hvds, or 2 hvds and a mauler.
Add 4 annihilator rockets and expanded missiles. Or 4 Salamanders with Eccm.
Let an aggressive officer in a tough cruiser lead.
You don't have to absolutely maximize DPS on one ship if you can have multiple boats focus fire from afar.
Leave the PD to specially outfitted frigates
Enforcers are one of those ships that's actually pretty solid but nobody uses because it's 1v1 simulator performance is bad.
4-6 of them with the setup you described above is stupidly effective if you group them together or send them after targets that are in the same enemy formation as each other.
@@SpadeDraco have you ever tried a good close combat enforcer for A.I. control? I haven't managed to yet.
I like the idea of using them like heavy calvary, if only there was some way to synchronize the burn drives...
@@matthewslivkoff5937 Realistically they just don't have the speed, durability or flux stats to keep the pressure on for any amount of time. I've done a couple SO builds with 2x HMG, 1x Assault Chaingun and annihilators or sabots in the missle slots. They're okayish. But nowhere near as good as the massed longer range configuration.
Interesting opinions. Would never expect to see the Centurion and Sunder class that low since those two ships are always a big part of my fleets (granted I use a mod which balances fleet size around deployment cost to make frigates more viable late game). Centurions basically never die and have very good potential PD for a frigate so I use them to keep ships busy to divide and conquer while my Sunders pick off isolated enemies with either tachyon lances or autopulse lasers with extended mag. They punch waaaaay above their weight for a destroyer and I prefer them over hammerheads in a lot of cases.
Its hard to calculate a lot of midline ship's worth because they're surprisingly specialized and designed to work around eachother's weaknesses, unlike what most people think about them (ex: "midliners are jacks of all trades" which isnt actually true). Part of why I always love running them.
Perhaps not the video for this question but wanted to ask anyways. What ship do you think is best to practice with when trying to get used to player controlled combat? I've been just letting the AI do my fighting since I'm too nervous to do it myself (since I really botch it everytime lol)
The Aroura, LP Brawler, or Hammerhead are all powerful and pretty easy ships to pilot. Good for learning combat without having to deal with too many mechanics.
What happened to the Eradicator? Base is really good as a line ship to protect the backline, a few of them bring a lot of dakka at range, good for transitioning from Exploring to hunting and escorting fast capitals like Conquests.
Base and P good for fast Fleets, or as a SO beasts.
Only problem is that you find so few of them before you start doing bounties :(
32:42 Tarsus was up until 1-2 updates ago just better Buffalo, now it has less cargo capacity but is still much safer if you end up needing to run, because it's system is burn drive insted of flare launcher and you can put SO in it, unlike the Buffalo.
I build my sunder with tachyon lance and two graviton beams. Then all the beam range extensions and shield extension to protect from flameouts. I can sit just outside the range of anything except rail guns and missiles and torps get knocked of course by the beams.
You should do another one of these split up by ship class.
Wealth of knowledge though.
I'd be interested in seeing some tier rankings from some of the more popular mods, like Diable Avionics or Missing Ships Mod. Nice work Grumpy!
I'll be honest. I don't know much about mods. I mostly play vanilla.
I love the pirate falcon. Two reaper typhoons, two sabots, expanded missile racks, whatever else you want on it because you won't need anything else after you bulldoze at least 10-12 ships 😆 I like to just put two long-ish range anti armor energy weapons and two annihilator pods on autofire because it looks sick to see missiles constantly flying everywhere
One thing about the revenant is that it is both a freighter and a fuel ship. I like to pimp one out with two s mod logistic mods, efficiency overhaul to reduce the high supply cost and another I can't remember atm, and then add, extra cargo holds and fuel tanks and it serves that role admirably as well as also hauling freight and making my fleet stealthy af.
If I find or buy or make a second one I don't pimp it out as much, it really doesn't need much. Mitigate the supply cost, expand fuel cap, blamo.
S tier to me.
Paragon is okay....made my 14th battlegrooup dominator somehow more powerful than a paragon. It can 1v1 it without damage consistently. Heavy needler for shield pressure and a Hephaestus cannon for armour damage. 2 flak cannons behind them on the medium mounts demolish missiles/fighters and denies pressure from anti shield missiles. Built in heavy armour, armoured weapon mounts, hardened shield = 2450 armour (wtf) and 11400 HP. With a officer got the shield efficiency to 0.51. it's an absolute beast that can manage a small fleet by itself. With all that armour even if they can somehow get through the shield they aren't gonna hurt it it just has so much health. Give it a reckless officer and it tries to act like a main fleet anchor battleship
The Odyssey isn't generally a ship you use to sit there and trade big hits with, except against other high speed, high maneuverable cruisers and battleships. It's a battlecruiser with plasma burn, you use it to approach at regular speed, veer off to the right to graze, fire SRM sabot swarms to smash a cruiser and destroy it with your 3 large weapon mounts, and plasma burn away when flux is maxed out and the rest of their fleet is swarming you. Then you do it again when plasma burn is recharged. Used this way it can almost fight evenly with a radiant, but some help from the fleet is always welcome there. With point defense build it can take on carrier fleets, with maneuvering skill you can outmaneuver and hit all the big low-tech ships from behind.
Brawler (standard and TT) are nice ships to have if you're looking for big battles because they have a much higher PPT than other frigates. Also, pretty sure Lasher has 5 small ballistics and 2 small missile.
Dude, do you think you could do a tier list for Fighter wings?
I don’t even know what the heck the mk 2 Buffalo is for, other than turning into a ball
Ox is ok on D tier (niche) but you must consider to buy one at least. If you want 18 burn and you dont want to SMod your paragon for an extra 2 burn drive, its cool to have. Ie: your Paragon has 17 burn and Dominator 18 (if you plan to max dps the Dominator), so 1 Ox can help to reach your max burn-ish of 18 without hull points.
There are a few vanilla ships which are missing from this Tierlist as well.
How do you rate the Eradicator, Eradicator (P), Manticore and Manticore (P) ?
I would also be interested in seeing your opinions on [Redacted] and Remnant Ships and a certain capital sized phase ship as well.
@Gg2 Hh I agree, I really like the fighting ability and 5x small missile slots on the Eradicator and Eradicator (P) burn drive gives it great mobility. At first I wasn't a fan because the turrets faced in weird directions but after using it I think it's great.
I am generally positive towards the Manticore since it's got good weapons and a nice flak ability but I haven't made a serious effort to use it in fleets yet.
Eradicator is high A tier, I use it for eliminating pesky frigates, Eradicator (P) is even better because it's faster with its burn drive. The Manticore I'd put it in C tier. I just don't really see the point of it. Its a destroyer with a large ballistic slot, which sounds cool in practice, but if I need more large ballistics, I would just bring a cruiser like the dominator. The Manticore doesn't do well in 1v1 combat against other destroyers, so I usually avoid it.
I typically relegate Manticores to long range fire support, using hellbores, gause cannons, or anything with significant range
@@Aereto Gauss cannon on Manticore is good for fluxing out frigats and siege stations. Good LR support too. Tried to use Mlolnir on it and it's always dying.
@@GrumpyThumperGaming Base eradicator with a mix of HVD, railguns and heavy maulers and long range hull mods make great gun platforms. A firing line of 3 or more is a whole lot of BRRRT.
I love the omen. The sunder is a lot of fun but is definitely a glass cannon. I like running it with the plasma cannon. The fury is awesome mid game if you run 2 in your fleet. I find the colossus pretty useful. I like the enforcer as it can pop out of nowhere and surprise ships. The wolf is awesome as flank support and hunting down fast moving retreaters. I’ve been destroyed by a kite several times, they are easy to underestimate early game. If the Hounds had shields they would be ferocious. Buffalos are definitely c tier for me.
I like the kite and it’s interceptor auto fit. Good to keep with destroyers to help them defend from fighter spam. Possibly decent for heavier ships too
Gotta question the XIV onslaught placement. Made an all armor no shield build with one and it is tearing through the campaign. I’ve had it beat most capitals outside of the paragon without even taking a point of hull damage.
What is your question?
Any comments on the new Eradicator and Manticore?
As for the Mudskipper I did find a use for it: Spacer start early game cheap/fast salvaging/surveying. A large gas planet with 325% hazard rating requires a crew of 810 to survey and Mudskippers pack 100 crew in a frigate hull. They don't slow down Shepherds/Dram like Nebula would and have respectable cargo space as well. Plus they're dirt cheap.
Eradicator is a phenomenal ship, both the standard and the pirate version I would consider S class. The standard one is recommend SO to quickly burst down targets using accelerated ammo feeder. For the pirate version, long range and advanced turret gyros will make surprisingly accurate at a distance. It'll do a great job putting out fires where you need it with those burn drives and long reach.
The Manticore is interesting. I certainly underrated it before. I'd give it a B rating. Great at super long range support and being a missle dispenser lol. It's a least worth considering in a fleet.
0:47 Cargo balloon, 5:04 Fuel balloon, 9:26 Another mid-size cargo balloon XD lol I think the reason why they exist in the game is to match the concept of pirate factions (pirates, pathers and poor player haha), who don't have strong fundamental infrastructure to manufacture standard combat ship so have no choice but to rely on inferior modified civilian-class vessel for their operation. Technically what they want to do is attacking a easy target like civilian convoy, collect goods from the wreckage and get the hell out of there asap, not having an open war against Hegemony or Tri-tachyon. Cheap ships with big cargo that can collect goods from their victim and couple of weapons to treat civilian are all they need, and that's what exactly those ship looks like in game (low price, low DP and large cargo space)
Not for player ships though.
Awesome list!
Bruh The Astral is hot garbage! I cannot begin to tell you the frustration I have been having with some of those Mission scenarios in the games main menu. Coral Nebula I think? You gotta take out an Onslaught with an Astral... and man getting the bombers to behave without S mods or officers or character points is legit a struggle. I think I have my best run at 83% and its bugging me that I haven't got the one with the Astral to 100% it's the only one! it says its medium difficulty and I have the one that is "Impossible" difficulty to 100% lol
sunders with 2 graviton beams and tachyon lance or HIL work nice for me. They stay alive thanks to they range and have serious firepower for the destroyer. At the early game they are absolutely devastating against frigates an are usable in the late game
Atlas mark 2 in theory is a good missile platform but maaaaan sure wasn't when i had it in my fleet
😂😂
It's so slow and fragile. Maybe with unstable injectors and expanded missile racks (+ ECCM?) you get two large missiles for 24 DP but the logistics profile is horrible.
@@BobfromSydney yeah i was waiting for support mid battle got surrounded by multiple pather colossus when i looked at my radar the Atlas 2 was all the way in the rear
@@esotericegoism7536 The worst thing about it is that the sim is an "artificial" environment since your ships start in the centre instead of having to deploy across a larger battlefield starting from the edge. So even after sim testing it's not obvious how slow the Atlas Mk II is until you deploy it in real battles.
I've also noticed the opposite effect during Pirate battles if I move up quickly with my Odyssey I can often take out a lot of smaller ships before the Pirate Atlas MkII even appears on the battlefield because they are so slow.
@@BobfromSydney It's the same speed as a Paragon, just without the range and eventual payoff.
I could be missing something here but I think you might have left out the eradicator?
Eradicator Light Cruiser and Vanguard frigate.
Vanguard can tank larger ships at the cost of being easily outmaneuvered by frigates.
Eradicator? Stock is the Hammerhead upsized to cruiser size, still filling the role of burst DPS at the cost of speed. Recommend flankers to assist closing in for the kill. Pirate version, better used in pursuit when enemies try to disengage, though there are other offerings.
Some have said that early game sunder are better than a hammerhead just because it has more utility. Hammerheads tend to get looked at more just because of their special ability which is basically the same as the brawler.
YES !!! Finally some recognition for the Legion ! The Millenium Falcon of Starsector ! (in my eyes anyway)
the Prometheus 2 is not slow. it wallows when it turns, but it can break 250 top speed with burn drive.
A good build for the enforcer is to go long ranged, since it's so slow, you can't expect to force a knife fight in it. For that, a single Mauler and two Hypervelocity drivers on the front three medium mounts works well, with your pick of PD on the side mounts. (I'm partial to HMGs to fend off anyone who wants to make it a close range fight.)
I use my apogee like an aroura with heavy + antimatter blasters and safety overrides bc its shield is strong enough to really let you get in there and hang
I feel like you're wrong with the monitor, not because it isn't a great ship, it is, but because while it is very tanky I've noticed Tachyon lances obliterate it's because they seem to do damage through the shield. I figured this out because people were saying you can tank a paragon, but I went against one in the simulations and lances killed it quickly
Great Tier List; thanks for you opinion and not too surprised about your S Tier after seeing the Zero to Hero let's Play :-)
Surprised though you put the Astral so high since I've never seen you use one ! Myself I haven't used it much so need to play with it some more.
You could build shieldless AI enforcer in a way that would allow it to solo AI paragon. once
I'm still new enough to the game that I can't identify most of the ships by simply looking. Any chance you have this written down somewhere? If not, no biggie - I'll just watch it again.
No, sorry I don't have this written down. It was kind of just off the cuff commentary on different ships.
I will add the name for the ships for the next tier list, which will be for the next update, those are the kinds of things that are not know until someone complains.
I think you're mad underselling the Apogee. yeah it's not the best cruiser at soloing capital ships, but it's 18 deployment points, ofc it's not the best at that, it costs less than 75% of a dominator or champion.
however it's got the strongest shield tank of any cruiser in the game, and works amazing as a supporting cruiser to your true line cruisers or capitals like the dominator or champion, stick a HIL or tachyon on it + a MLRS and it'll do wonders picking off annoying destroyers/frigates and pressuring opposing capitals/cruisers
Plus it's got an amazing logistical suite for a ship as capable in combat as it is. 400 cargo, 450 max crew, 200 fuel capacity, only 2 fuel/ly and 2 built in logistical hullmods.
I see that the erradicator isn't here. In which tier would you put it and why?
Good question. I'd definitely put it in A tier. It's great at dishing out a ton of firepower in different directions and it's fast, making it excellent for dealing with frigates and destroyers.
@@GrumpyThumperGaming thx a lot for telling me that the erradicator is quite good, i was planning on using a lot of them with other ships for taking down fleets (and also because i watched a video where some erradicators and conquests destroyed some big fleets) and i didn't know if they were useful or not. Also, do you have a video dedicated for proper ship refitting? I'm quite a beginner in terms of making good ships and some advice would be very helpful to me
Pirate colossus with shield shunt and bulkheads and integrated point defense ai slaps. Basically just an indestructible and cheaply maintained carrier. You can deploy like 20 of them at once. As far as i know, its the highest ratio of durability to deployment cost out of any loadout. Even more than the invictus dreadnaught
Legion is so easily S-tier, put a ton of torpedos on the nose and delete everything
No, the Griffin with 2 Large Missle, 3 Medium Missle and Small Missles would be completely overpowered! With the missle hull mod and the skill I would go for Griffin only fleets.
The only reason atlas mk.2 was trash in 0.91 is because it is uber slow in space but in 0.95 you can have free +2 burn for civ ships, but in fleets it is a very good artillery ship. For me it is around B or C tier as it has low dp and has alot of dmg potential with 2 large ballistics, 2 missiles and accelerated ammo feeder.
I really like the atlas mk2 when you have a good frontline. People hate it but they dont understand the firepower it provides for 24DP. Use 2 of them on an enemy capital and dish more dps than a Paragon.
I've learned to use the Odyssey, you just strap 2 plasma cannons and put them in autofire, with maxed flux capacity and dissipation and run circles around everything. You can have some harpoons or typhon reapers, bu the plasma cannons will melt just about anything. For fighters, longbow bombers seem to work wonders, as a way to break enemy shields.
Seriously, try it out sometime. There are few more satisfying things than to get behind a onslaugh or legion and just wreck their shit up.
For the Falcon-class, put assault chaingun on the ballistic hardpoints and graviton beam on the energetic points. Put high scatterer amplifier to make a pressure on your oppenent. You have a ship that can destroy a Dominator-class if you play aggressive.
I've been working on the TT Brawler, it definitely can't take 2 medium slot guns or like you give it Graviton beams and make it an escort for a sunder or something to just kill ships with laser pointer spam.
But I put a heavy blaster in one slot and 2 ion canons and then OP willing a low cost missile, i tend to test against a solo enforcer and this setup reliably wins over it, the biggest issue I've faced is one I've noticed with all brawler variants is that they hate getting up close to other ships, their AI is weird and I had to give it a shield shunt to prevent it from backing off out of opposing weapons range but not dropping its shields to vent.
TT brawler is actually good with [REDACTED] guns. I like the shock-lances/cryoflamers.
Classic legion higher than conquest!? Really curious to see proper legion build. Love the ship, just can't quite build it right
Griffon is fine as it is. Just because it doesn't have more large slots doesn't make it not a missile cruiser. Mediums are perfectly fine. It's main purpose is to focus on sustained missile support with missile racks and a officer in it almost never runs out of ammo, 2 harpoons, 3 small sabots and the large can be anything you need. Never take salamander or pilums with it as it's literally a wasted slot.
Compared to any other ship it will still be firing missiles long after any other ship in the game.
Atlas 2 is a great fire support in player hands. Max out flux dissipation and venting speed, slap 2x Gauss Cannons and Hurricane MIRV and you've got a really powerful ship for only 30DP. B tier IMO
Conquest is definitely an A+ tier. Shield stats alone don't mean squat. What matters is flux stats and the type of ship. The firepower coming off a Conquest and its mobility means things shouldn't be getting near enough to need anything better. And the best part about Conquests is that the AI handles them really well. Can't say that about most capital ships. They can keep it alive and get kills. What more could you ask?
Legion I'd put B tier. AI is pretty meh with it, and it tries to be too much and doesn't have the OP for it. If I wanted to add fighters/bombers to my fleet I'd much rather use Herons. Way more cost effective and able to follow the flow of the battle and move fast enough to keep out of danger. Legion XIV, however, I'd give it A tier. Only reason it isn't S is because the bombers slows it down at chewing through capitals, and runs out of missiles before it can take advantage of its good Peak Performance.
You're sleeping on the Odyssey. S tier. Firepower and tank of a capital, mobility almost better than a destroyer, can beat any capital with the right build, and has great stats for exploration. The skill ceiling is very high. A capital sized scalpel.
Onslaught C tier. AI Conquest always does better. Only value is for piloting it to bully the badly-piloted slow and weak AI ships, or for people who feel good about smashing smaller fleets. Does best with Shield Shunt but that also gives it a limited lifetime. Too expensive for a damage sponge when Monitors exist.
You're sleeping on the Prometheus 2 as well. Very strong bargain ship, although tough to outfit right, as evidenced by how bad the ones you face in combat are. Very cost effective ship for starting your campaigns out. Squall, HIL and M2AC's is all you need to start it rolling. And unlike the Atlas 2, its specialized storage wasn't completely obliterated. A tier.
Not even letting the Prometheus off? It's more cost effective than Phaeton and has the OP to give it the logistic hullmods it needs, as well as Unstable Injectors and some weapons to give it a better chance to flee when necessary. It's also necessary for exploring so you aren't just dumping all the fuel you find, or getting in trouble or cutting your trips short because of a dry spell or you ran out of space for rescued ships in your fleet. And the game is literally impossible once your campaign matures and big fleets become the norm.
Apogee....D tier. Can't do anything particularly well. Not worth the cost for any of the things it provides. Nerfed into oblivion. RIP.
Doom is still pretty strong. You just gotta be smarter when piloting. Can't just weave through enemy fleets with impunity. And now it actually struggles with OP decisions just like most ships. It's worth its BP. It's just not overpowered anymore.
51:31 Try SO Scarab approach with 4xIR pulse and Ion/Antimatter blaster - it has great speed and shields and can shred most frigates and even destroyers in first minutes of combat.
Also unrelated but Atlas Mk2 is better than F tier for what it does. Yes, poor armor and speed and CR recovery are all awful but the sheer amount of dakka it provides for 24 points should not be underestimated. It is F tier in being frontline and tanking damage but I'd say it is at least A tier as a fire support ship/anti fighter defense. I like it alot with ITU Hellbores and ECCM Locusts.
Other F tiers like Tarsus or Buffalo Mk2 also shouldn't be underestimated - they are the cheapest engagement point wise Converted Hangars in the game. Not that much better as a carrier but definitely not garbage.
Apogee's are cool I never go without one I literally always build it as a long range support type role with a extremely high powered energy weapon on the front and a squall, get that range mod for the energy weapons, and dump the rest of the OP into shield stuff. makes for a great poker/ fire drawing ship and it rips ass with some modded weapons. the flux stats are so good I don't even rig it with any PD
Aurora looks like a plate gauntlet, you look at it and you know enemy's gonna get fisted and they won't like it.
With how much you like large missile slots, I'm surprised you don't like the atlas mk2. 24 dp for 2 large missile slots and enough ballistic slots to deny missiles or fighter retaliation seems up your alley.
I like medium energy slots. They aren't as powerful in raw damage like a missile but they have a lot of utility in graviton beams and ion beams. Feel like there's some untapped potential there.
I would like the atlas mk2 if it had better armor and shielding. right now it's just a balloon, granted it's a balloon spikes (missles and small ballistics) but a balloon none the less.
@@GrumpyThumperGaming I can't argue with that. Though with everything else in the pirate arsenal, I rarely see anything bigger than a frigate get close enough to a backline atlas mk2 if I build the Frontline right. And with the flak it can bring up, a frigate and anything smaller is risking a lot to try and get that close. Devastator canons are low Flux ways to get this ship a pretty large no fly zone.
But at the end of the day, the conquest is a better ship in almost every way.
Thoughts on the Eradicator and Manticore?
the Eradicator is a phenomenal ship. Excellent weapon armaments and great placements, very well armored and each variant has a good special ability. Would strongly recommend it.
The Manticore on the other hand... it's a bit awkward, to say the least. Not sure how to build it, so I often leave it out of my fleet in favor of better destroyers.
Love piloting the Harbridger. Putting reaper missiles in the rear slots and a well timed quantum disruption can wreck any ship. Pretty useless and expensive in the AI's hands tho.
I can effectively trade a harbinger for a paragon, but that's about it.
> odyssey
>b tier
Bold claim my friend
I didn't make this tier list to make friends 😂
Non-pirate shades are easily A or even S for me. While they can only take on up to cruisers 1v1 (which is already good for a frigate), strapping a swarm of 4-5 piloted shades with Wolfpack and 2 AM blasters each and they can take on some serious fights. Team them up with a decent fleet comp and they tear things apart with ease.
(hears literally anything you say)
yes, m'lord
The sunder is awesome if the players use it. But it is terrible if you let the AI use it like all "glass cannon" ships.
When piloted by the player it works very well with 3 phase lances, both with SO for velocity or increased laser range hullmod.
man I encountered a monitor in someone's fleet the other day, i think it was a hege merchant or something idk, and i was like why isnt this damn thing dying? I shot those red laser rockets into it, which up the flux on capital ships significantly, and he was just like "thats cool bro lol"
Wait, was the Eradicator not made yet at the time of this video? It's not on the tier list at all.
it was, it just wasn't included on the list I chose. it's a great ship and if you want to see me use it (to questionable degrees of success) check out Rum Runners.
@@GrumpyThumperGaming So far, it's been my workhorse. I only recently suffered a defeat at the hands a particularly spicy space station fortress that I hadn't fought before.